The "Exchangeable image file" format (Exif) is a specification for the image file format used by digital cameras with the addition of specific metadata tags. The meta data are written by the camera and can be post-processed using certain desktop applications. Coppermine is capable of displaying some of the EXIF data within the pic info section, like date and time information, camera settings, location information, descriptions and copyright information.
Please note that EXIF is far from being a standard: each camera vendor uses his own "flavor" of EXIF - therefore, the EXIF meta data will differ from camera to camera. Coppermine tries to circumvent this by using different libraries for the most common camera brands and only displaying the exif data that are most common for all brands.
Coppermine comes with an EXIF manager that let's the coppermine admin decide what EXIF data should be displayed within coppermine. Please note: if the exif data don't exist within a particular image, coppermine will of course not be able to display them. Coppermine is not an editor for exif data - it just displays the exif data that exists in your pics.
To access the exif manager, go to coppermine's config and click within the section File settings at "Manage exif display" next to the line "Read EXIF data in JPEG files" or choose the corresponding admin menu entry.
Tick the checkboxes in the exif manager that you want to show up in coppermine's pic info section (if the image file actually holds this particular set of information). Remember though that there is no guarantee that a particular field will be populated or displayed - as explained above, each camera vendor supplies a set of supported exif fields that differ from other vendors.